A Friday Falcon feast

By Greg Keim
THE GOSHEN NEWS

Fri, May 16 2008

— To say that the Fairfield Falcons dominated the Class B field in the 38th annual Kelly Relays for high school boys track and field Friday night at Concord would be an understatement.
Fairfield athletes won 10 of 14 events to finish with 120 points. New Prairie was second at 69, followed by Whitko 66, John Glenn 57, Bremen 50, Jimtown 25 and Culver Military 20.
“We performed good both on the track and in the field events,” Fairfield coach Bob Miller said.
Fairfield repeated as Class B champion and won its third title in event history. The other was in 2002.
The Falcons are the only team other than NorthWood to win the “B” title since 1983.
The NorthWood Panthers are now in Class A.
Fairfield won all five field events.
Jacob Yoder (11-6) Chase Pinion (10-6) and Patrick Dunkin (10-0) were first in pole vault; Isaac Burtsfield (140-5), Ryan Lewis (139-6) and Jordan Johnson (133-9) in discus; Travis Herman-Shepler (52-0), Lewis (51-9) and Nate Yoder (48-3) in shot put; Alex Korenstra (6-20, Tanner Foust (5-10) and Pinion (65-6) in high jump; Foust (20-8), Mike Hopkins (19-9) and Trevor Conrad (17-3 1/2) in long jump.
“We did good in both throws,” Miller said. “In shot, all three kids not only had career bests, but also they had their best series of the season. Nate Yoder did a great job for us.
“The field events set the tone for us on the track.”
In running events, Foust, Tyler Gangloff, Conrad and Alic Vanover won the 4 x 100-meter relay (44.38); Vanover, Gangloff, Robby Gingerich and Korenstra the 4 x 400 relay (3:29.41); Hopkins, Gangloff, Martin Lantz and Jacob Yoder the shuttle hurdles (1:04.30); Vanover, Conrad, Lantz and Korenstra the 4 x 200 relay (1:33.50); Vanover, Gangloff, Korenstra and Gingerich the sprint medley intermediate relay (3:45.47).
“Both our sprinters and distance kids had good nights,” Miller said. “With the Northeast Corner Conference meet coming up (next Friday at Fairfield) and sectional also it’s nice to see the kids running good.”
Jimtown’s best finishes were a third in the 4 x 100 relay (45.72), fourths in discus from Richie Hahn (127-8), Zach Sprgeon (103-7) and Ryan May (95-3); fourth in the 4 x 200 relay (11:37.45), shuttle hurdles (1:17.70) and 4 x 100 relay.